Tuesday, November 30, 2010

"Rhetorically, Palin works without a net, or, at the least, without teleprompters. She usually speaks off the cuff. She writes her own Tweets. She's frank, earnest and open, qualities the American people desire in a leader, but ones unrewarded in a time where every word can be recorded, dissected and repeated ad nauseam. While Obama is credited with having the common touch, Palin actually touches the common hands—and hearts. Liberals remain perplexed by her popularity, endlessly speculating about what it is that the American people see in Palin. Is it her looks? Her brashness? Her secret Tea Party cabal manipulating “Dancing with the Stars”? The real answer is that most Americans see themselves, someone who speaks honestly, and sometimes imperfectly, from the heart."

Chilly temperatures and long line couldn't keep these Arkansans from Sarah Palin*KARK-TV reports from Little Rock that hundreds of Arkansans waited hours in what felt like below-freezing temperatures for a chance to have Gov. Palin sign copies of her second book, America by Heart:

With her new book out and her new reality show on television, many wonder if this will lead up to another run for the White House.

[...]

The book cover for "America by Heart" says it's about Sarah Palin's take on what it's like to be an American. Today's long line was full of people who came out because they say they identify with Palin and her emphasis on faith and family.

The chilly temperatures and long line couldn't keep these Arkansans from Sarah Palin. They came bundled up, and started lining up before the sun came up.

Palin fan Richard Caster said, "Got here at 5 am, left the house in Mountain Home at 2 am."

Caster drove nearly three hours from Baxter County and was the first person in line at Sam's Club. But the line was filled with people equally as anxious to shake Palin's hand and get her John Handcock on her latest book.

Palin supporter Ben Jiles said, "I came down here to see Sarah Palin cause to me, she is a true American. She's connected with so many people not through everyday politics, but through the ideals we all live by."

Although only 500 people had the coveted wristbands which guaranteed their books would be signed, the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate signed a few dozen more than that, and the event wrapped up around 8 o'clock.

Max Brantley of the liberal Arkansas Times posted two videos of interviews with fans waiting in line here.

"This is not a difficult argument to make. It’s common sense."*On Facebook, Gov. Palin references economist Thomas Sowell, who makes the case for extending the Bush tax cuts:

The Case for Extending All the Tax Cuts

In “America By Heart” folks will get a feel for some of my favorite writers and thinkers. One of them is the great economist Thomas Sowell. Some of you may recall that in “Going Rogue” I mentioned Sowell’s famous book “A Conflict of Visions” to explain the way the liberal or “progressive” world view and philosophy differs from the conservative view. Sowell’s articles are always worth reading, and his most recent column is no exception. He reminds us where our attention needs to be during this lame-duck session of Congress. He notes that the Democrats have articulated their tired class warfare argument about “tax cuts for the rich,” but conservatives have still not articulated our proven time-tested argument that tax cuts spur economic growth, which in turn helps everyone from all income levels and increases tax revenue as the economy grows. Sowell reminds us:

“These are not new arguments on either side. They go back more than 80 years. Over that long span of time, there have been many sharp cuts in tax rates under presidents Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. So we don’t need to argue in a vacuum. There is a track record.

“What does that record say? It says, loud and clear, that cuts in tax rates do not mean cuts in tax revenues. In all four of these administrations, of both parties, so-called “tax cuts for the rich” led to increased tax revenues — with people earning high incomes paying not only a larger sum total of tax revenues, but even a higher proportion of all tax revenues.

“Most important of all, these tax-rate reductions spurred economic activity, which we definitely need today.”

But as Sowell later points out, having a proven time-tested policy isn’t enough if we don’t articulate it. We need to remind people that tax cuts help everyone. And we should also remind the Democrats that many of the so-called “rich” they’re dismissing are our small business owners who account for 70% of all job creation in this country. At a time when we need job growth, we should not target job creators with tax hikes. Closing our deficit gap requires us to cut spending, but we also need to spur economic growth. With that in mind, the last thing we should do is hamper our economic innovators and entrepreneurs with excessive taxes, overly burdensome regulation, and more uncertainty. This is not a difficult argument to make. It’s common sense.

She was greeted by "about five hundred adoring supporters"*Gov. Palin visited the Books A Million store in Baton Rouge to sign copies of America By Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag. A crowd of about 500 enthusiastic supporters were waiting in line for her. A report from television station WBRZ:

Also covering the event were WAFB-TV and The Daily Reveille, the student newspaper for Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

John Podhoretz hailed the Palin Plan as "brilliant"*Our colleague Benyamin Korn is the former executive editor of The Jewish Exponent and current Director of Jewish Americans for Sarah Palin, editor of JewsforSarah.com and host of the “Jewish Independent Talk” radio program. In an op-ed for The Jewish Week, Benyamin chronicles the growth in support for Gov. Palin in the Jewish community, including a number of Jewish intellectuals who are now giving Gov. Palin a second look:

In recent weeks, a number of prominent Jewish intellectuals have been publicly praising Sarah Palin. This despite a recent poll, reported by veteran analyst James Besser (Nov. 26), that well-educated Jews appear to be overwhelmingly opposed to Palin. How do we explain this discrepancy?

Besser focuses on a recent poll showing Palin with stronger support among voters in general who are "less educated" and "less affluent." That poll made no reference to Jewish voters, but Besser argues that since Jews are "more educated than the population at large and more affluent," therefore one may safely assume they oppose Palin too.

Let’s recall that pundits made similar assumptions about Ronald Reagan when he was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. Reagan also had considerable appeal among the less educated and the less affluent; surely educated and affluent Jews would support President Jimmy Carter – or so the pundits reasoned. But on election day, the majority of American Jews repaid Carter's disdain for Israel, his impotence in rescuing the Americans held hostage in Iran, and his mismanagement of the American economy, by abandoning him for Ronald Reagan, the most conservative Presidential candidate of the post-Vietnam era. Reagan received the largest share of the Jewish vote of any Republican presidential nominee in U.S. history.

While it is certainly too early to assume that 1980 will repeat itself in 2012, there are signs of growing respect for Gov. Palin’s policies and positions – especially among some of the Jewish intellectuals whom Besser presumes now oppose her.

Like Governor Sarah Palin,Congressman Allen West has joined the Battle

So Fill Your HandsYou Marxist America-Hating S_Bs

Marxist NBC Trots out their Anti-Conservative Scumbaggery

Congressman-Elect Allen West is as much a nightmare for snake oil Marxists as Sarah Palin. They are both coming for these enemies of Americans and THEY MEAN BUSINESS. These Marxists are frightened out of their total wits.

Folks... if you thought the Marxist-Leftist Junkyard Dog attacks on Sarah Palin was below the belt, they are just warming up on powerful political figures on the right. That they focused their personal attacks almost exclusively on Sarah Palin over the past two years is their admission of guilt at failing to connect with the majority of America... thus they seek to demonize us all directly and indirectly. Sarah Palin is the Mother Lode of Anti-Marxism Kryptonite and they know it in spades. Now she has company, which includes Congressman Allen West.

These scumbagger Marxists have no real reason to fear weaklings on the Conservative side of the equation... and they have their progressive friends RINOs on the right as well. Did you observe them rallying around Lisa Murkowski [R-AK] against Joe Miller?

RINOs are their not-so-secret backstabbing weapons and have stabbed Americans in the back yet again today:

Watch what these Marxists do to smear Congressman Allen West.

Can you imagine a presidential ticket with both Sarah Palin and Allen West?

The heads of the Democrat Marxist Elitist Dragons would literally explode in one massive detonation, for they know all they have is snake oil to sell and/or shove down the throats of Americans who have woken up and kicked their Congressional Lamer A__es to hell and back.

More opening salvos in the Vichy GOP's war on Sarah *Vichy Republican, former Congressman and MSDNC talk show host Joe Scarborough launched a full-scale attack on Sarah Palin Tuesday. The two-pronged assault by the man Don Imus has described as "a disgusting, backstabbing phony," was waged in a Politico opinion piece and on MSDNC's poorly-rated "Morning Joe"program.

At least Palin supporters can't claim that they were "blindsided." Politico predicted that this was coming in an October 31 article written by Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei titled "Next for GOP leaders: Stopping Sarah Palin." The GOP establishment's campaign against the party's 2008 vice presidential candidate was described in the piece as an "urgent task that they will begin in earnest as soon as the elections are over." By "in earnest," Allen and Vandehei meant to say beyond the usual anti-Palin smears made by pretend "conservatives" such as Kathleen Parker, David Frum and Peggy Noonan. Those sort of attacks have been seen since Gov. Palin was named as John McCain's running mate in late August of 2008.

Indeed, we have seen similar attacks on the first woman to be both Alaska's governor and the GOP's vice presidential candidate coming from new quarters. Probing maneuvers by Karl Rove testing Gov. Palin's perimeter began in mid-September and were ramped up by "Bush's Brain" just two days before the Allen-Vendehei article was published by Politico, when Rove questioned her "gravitas" and declared the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" series on TLC to be "unpresidential."

The next skirmish in the coordinated RINO attack on Gov. Palin came from the unlikeliest of guerrilla fighters in the person of Barbara Bush, whose diss was both sexist and condescending, as Mama Frizzy preceded her opinion that Sarah Palin "should stay in Alaska" with a back-handed compliment about the beauty of the woman she was attacking.

The assaults on Gov. Palin by Rove and Bush were both based on style, not substance, as was pointed out at Wake up Black America:

The reason why anti Sarah Palin snipes can't debate me and her supporters on the issue of Sarah Palin's qualifications to be president is because the arguments that go in her favor are all based on facts, where as the negatives are based on opinions, gossip, smears and lies. Palin has earned the right to run for the GOP nomination. She in essence saved the GOP from it's certain death as a national party. While she has been going after Obama, Pelosi, Reid and others on their failed polices, other potential 2012 GOP candidates have been silently standing by watching trying to keep their powder dry.

The attacks by Scarborough are similar to the ones made by Rove and Mother Bush in this regard. Let's examine Scarborough's points from his Politico hit piece one by one:

"What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run? It makes the political biography of Barack Obama look more like Winston Churchill’s..."

This is a bald-faced lie. Sarah Palin was a city councilwoman for two terms (4 years), a mayor for three terms (6 years), chair of a state oil and gas commission for a year and chair of an interstate (38 states) oil and gas commission for a year. As governor of Alaska, three of her administration’s major proposed pieces of legislation passed in her first year in office -- an overhaul of the state’s ethics laws, a competitive process to construct a natural gas pipeline and a restructuring of Alaska’s oil valuation formula. As governor, she also used her veto powers to cut budgetary spending and called a halt to the “bridge to nowhere” that would have cost taxpayers an additional $400 million dollars. Comparisons of her resume to that of Barack Obama are here and here, lest anyone question whose is "thin." It is important to note that her resume includes considerable government executive experience, while Obama's has none. In the private sector, she is also a small businesswoman, co-owner of the family's salmon fishing operation with her husband Todd for years. So Sarah Palin's resume not only puts Barack Obama's to shame, but Joe Scarborough's as well.

In the past month alone, she has mocked Ronald Reagan’s credentials, dismissed George H.W. and Barbara Bush as arrogant “blue bloods” and blamed George W. Bush for wrecking the economy.

Sarah Palin most certainly did not mock President Reagan or his credentials. She merely pointed out that others had dissed Reagan as "only an actor" in response to Rove characterizing her television show as "unpresidential." Gov. Palin's remarks about the Bushes were also made in response to an unprovoked attack on her, one made by Barbara Bush herself.

Borrowing again from old left-wing attacks that Democrats used against GOP presidents, Palin channeled Ann Richards by bashing Bush and his wife as “blue bloods” who had wrecked America.

Exposing his own hypocrisy, Scarborough borrows from Democrat attacks on Sarah Palin in this piece. No less than three times Scarborough uses "half-term governor," one which comes right from the top of the list of DNC talking points. His characterizations of her as "maniacal" and "dopey" come right out of the left wing's anti-Palin playbook. Sarah Palin was correct that George H.W. Bush's abandonment of Reagan principles doomed him to be a one-term president who opened up the door for 8 years of Bill Clinton in the Oval Office.

"Maybe poor George Herbert Walker Bush was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Indeed, he was so pampered growing up that on his 18th birthday, the young high school graduate enlisted in the armed forces. This spoiled teenager somehow managed to be the youngest pilot in the Navy when he received his wings, flying 58 combat missions over the Pacific during World War II. On Sept. 2, 1944, “Blue Blood” Bush almost lost his life after being shot down by Japanese anti-aircraft fire."

What does the elder Bush's commendable war record have to do with this argument? It doesn't change the fact that his ineptitude on fiscal matters prevented his reelection and allowed the Democrats to gain control of the executive branch for 8 years. Sure, he did the right thing in Kuwait, and he's a nice guy, but this doesn't change the facts of history. Congressman Charlie Rangel served honorably in the Korean War, yet those admirable credentials did not prevent him from making bad decisions which led to censure by his peers on the House ethics committee. Scarborough's diversionary tactic is transparent and weak.

Who wouldn’t agree that finishing third in the Miss Alaska beauty contest is every bit as treacherous as risking your life in military combat? Maybe the beauty contestant who would one day be a reality star and former governor didn’t win the Distinguished Flying Cross, but the half-termer was selected as Miss Congeniality by her fellow contestants.

It's no surprise that Scarborough would throw in some sexism in his attack on Gov. Palin. The Vichy GOP has been in bed with the liberal Democrats for so long now that their attacks on good conservatives sound just like those made by their fellow travelers in the donkey party. Look, Sarah is so much more than a former beauty contestant. She only entered beauty contests to try to help pay her way through college, and for that she is vilified? She has, in fact, been a Blue Star Mom and Commander of her State's National Guard and Air Guard. As both a governor and a citizen, Sarah Palin has been nothing but supportive of our troops and veterans. That Scarborough has to reach all the way back to the Second World War to defend George H. W. Bush only demonstrates the weakness of his argument.

Another claim repeatedly made by Scarborough on MSDNC and aped by his Democrat co-host is that every Republican leader or talk radio host with whom he's spoken shares his criticism of Palin but is afraid to say so on the air. He must not talk to many conservative talk show hosts, then. We will bet real money he doesn't talk to Mark Levin, who just last month condemned Moaning Joe for previous attacks on Gov. Palin:

I see Palin campaigning all over the country for candidates. I see her raising funds for them. I see her attending Tea Party events, Republican events, you name it. She's in the fight. She has put her neck on the line and has exposed her family to outrageous ridicule. And she has done great things that have advanced conservatism and Republican Party hopes next week.

Conversely, Joe Scarborough has done nothing. He sits at his table on MSNBC arrogantly denouncing conservatives, pandering to liberals, and repeating stupid talking points someone uttered days earlier. He has no ideas and, worse, he drags down those who do. Has he campaigned for anyone? Yet he passes judgment on someone who has. Has he raised funds for anyone? Has he used his "celebrity" (such as it is) in constructive ways?

[...]

Go Sarah. Get lost Joe.

We also doubt he's had many conversations with the king of talk radio, Rush Limbaugh. The two have had a long-running feud, during the course of which Rush said:

Moderates want kumbaya, moderates want everybody to just hug and kiss and get along. It's all a myth.... People fall for these tricks that are designed to shut us up, that are designed to get us to stand down, to be nice and gentle because the Republican Party, you have to understand, Rush, is hated and despised because everybody knows it's full of racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes, and that's a cliche, and it just bothers me that smart people like Scarborough fall for this because he's allowing himself to be neutered, and that's what made him upset today, I called him a neutered, chickified moderate. [Emphasis ours.]

No, Scarborough didn't find corroboratorsin the lies he's telling about Gov. Palin in the persons of either Limbaugh or Levin, so one has to wonder which lower-echelon Republican talk show hosts Moaning Joe is talking to. It must be the ones whose ratings are as pitiful as Scarborough's are. Oh, wait, nobody's ratings are that pitiful, at least not anybody of consequence.

Make no mistake, the attacks on Sarah Palin by first Rove, then Mrs. Bush and most recently Joe Scarborough were carefully planned and coordinated. These are only the opening salvos in the Republican Party establishment's war on Sarah Palin. Chief among her many sins in their eyes is that she encouraged and supported the grass roots movement against the good old back room boys, and for this she must be destroyed politically. Ironically, while she has been busy taking the fight to Barack Obama and the liberal Democrats, the same Republicans who should have joined her in that battle have been busy planning and waging political warfare against her instead. One thing you can be sure of, more attacks have already been mapped out by the GOP elites, and we will be witnessing them in the coming weeks.

In conclusion, Scarborough got one, and only one, point right. If establishment Republicans want to criticize Gov. Palin, let them do so not in a cowardly and anonymous manner. Let them grow a spine and put their names behind their disrespect. Of course, Gov. Palin was the first person to make that suggestion, so Scarborough is simply echoing the woman he wants to destroy on that particular point.

-By Warner Todd Huston*CNN indulged a classic left media tactic by misleading with a headline in a recent piece on former Governor Sarah Palin. The headline, if read by itself, seems to be saying that Sarah Palin delivered a "gaffe-filled message," when the truth is that her message talked about gaffes, but wasn't "filled" with them per se. The effect was that the headline made Palin look worse than the story itself did. If all one read was the headline, one would get a far different opinion of what was going on than if one read the story that went with it.

On Nov. 26, CNN delivered this headline on its Political Ticker blog: "Palin delivers a gaffe-filled message".

Think about that headline. Doesn't it say to you that Palin delivered a bunch of gaffes in her message? If all you did was read that headline, you'd think she made a fool of herself with all sorts of incorrect statements in it. One suspects that CNN fully realized this fact.

The whole story arose after an appearance that Palin did on the Glenn Beck show last week. On that show, while speaking of the shelling that the North Koreans perpetrated on South Korea, Palin accidentally said that our allies were the North Koreans. Clearly she simply had a slip of the tongue and meant the South Koreans were our allies, not the North.

How am I so sure she knew the difference? Because not only did she quickly correct herself, but she had correctly identified which Korea was which multiple times in the minutes prior to her slip of the tongue. It wasn't as if she mentioned the Koreas once and incorrectly at that. It is clear that she understands which is which.

Naturally in its report CNN forgot to mention that Palin was correctly identifying the Koreas multiple times before the gaffe.

In any case, after Palin got illicitly lambasted by the left for a simple slip of the tongue, she issued one of her famous Facebook posts in reply to her critics. In it Palin delineated many of the verbal gaffes that Barack Obama issued since he began running for president and pointed out that the Old Media never made a big deal about all these many gaffes made by Obama.

So, let's get back to that headline, "Palin delivers a gaffe-filled message."

While it is strictly true that Palin's Facebook message is filled with gaffes, it is not a "gaffe filled message" in the way that the phrase is generally used. After all if someone says that one issued a "gaffe filled message" people assume that the person issuing the message is making multiple gaffes in that message. They don't immediately assume that said message contains a list of someone else's gaffes. They assume that the message issuer is making mistakes.

This notion is, of course, what CNN hoped to promulgate. They hoped to fool people that only read headlines into thinking that Palin made multiple gaffes in a message. This headline was meant to bash Sarah Palin.

Sadly, misleading with a headline is a very common Old Media tactic. They can bash with a headline -- all the while assuming a large percentage of their readers will read just the headline and skip the story -- and still claim to be giving "the whole story" by adding a story that seems to contradict the headline.

Can Mitt close the new media gap between him and our Sarah?*According to The Boston Herald's Hillary Chabot, Mitt Romney aims to try to emerge from the large shadow cast over him by "pop culture and new media megastar" Sarah Palin. The former Massachusetts governor hopes to "recapture the limelight" with a guest appearance on the “Tonight Show” with Jay Leno Tuesday night. But there is a difference of opinion among observers about the effectiveness of such a strategy:

Romney supporters said his first “Tonight Show” guest spot since his failed 2008 presidential bid was not inspired by the All-Sarah-All-the-Time coverage of his chief rival for the GOP nomination.

Palin has saturated the air waves — bludgeoning halibut on her Alaska reality show on TLC, cheering on daughter Bristol from a front-row seat on the ABC hit “Dancing with the Stars,” dishing politics on Fox News and flogging her second book on a coast-to-coast tour.

Spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney has nothing to promote, and simply thought the Leno sit-down would be “fun.”

Others say a laid-back chat with Bay State native Leno will give the straight-arrow Romney a chance to let down his blow-dried hair in front of millions of late-night couch potatoes.

“He’s trying to make sure people don’t forget him,” said John Feehery, a Republican consultant based in Washington D.C. “He’s trying to humanize himself and appear sympathetic.”

GOP consultant and pollster Steve Lombardo advised Romney to avoid an all-out star war with a star of Palin’s magnitude.

“I think it would be a mistake for Romney to try to out-celebrity Sarah Palin. I don’t think anyone can do that right now,” Lombardo said. “He’ll probably never have the celebrity status or connect with the core Republican party like she does.”

Chabot says Romney has also been trying to close the social media gap between him and the 2008 vice presidential candidate. But he has a long way to go. Sarah Palin, she notes, has more than three times the number of Twitter followers and Facebook friends that Romney does. Blogging clinical law professor William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection tells Chabot that may be an insurmountable goal for Romney, opining “I don’t think anybody can catch her in terms of social media. She really has pioneered use of Facebook as primary means of communication with the public.”

The “America By Heart” book tour continues today in Baton Rouge, LA and Little Rock, AR. Click here for details.

I got a chance to speak with Jedediah Bila from Human Events last week. You can check out her great column about it here.

Last May I had the honor of meeting radio show host Hugh Hewitt at an event we both spoke at in Denver. He’s a great patriot, and I’m humbled by his kind words about “America By Heart.” You can read his review here.

I mention in “America By Heart” that National Review is one of my favorite magazines, and I used excerpts of articles by a number of NR writers. Among them is Kathryn Jean Lopez, who always has such wonderful insight into cultural issues, particularly in regard to building a culture of life. I’m honored by her thoughtful review of “America By Heart” and especially by her including it in the same review with Pope Benedict’s new book. You can read her article here.

Fox & Friends interviewed Luigi Zingales, the University of Chicago economist whose work I mentioned in “America By Heart.” You can see the interview here.

I look forward to seeing you in Baton Rouge and Little Rock today and signing your books!

Monday, November 29, 2010

"I’ve put forth the proposition that the best way to defeat Obama is to put forward a conservative but non-controversial candidate who will keep the election focused on Obama... But as I reflect back on the past two plus years since Palin’s nomination, I’m wondering if an all-out, knock-down, drag-out fight with the Palin haters is just what this country needs most, not least. And whether that is just as likely to be successful in defeating Obama as the 'safe' route. Nothing and no one brings out the worst in the Democratic Party, in the liberal media, entertainment and academic establishments, and in the left-wing blogosphere, as does Sarah Palin. Bringing out this worst may be the path to a lasting, generational conservative victory. Maybe this is the battle which needs to be joined, once and for all."

"You may have shaken hands with the future president"*Mary Sparacello of The Times-Picayune reports on Gov. Palin's book signing event this evening in Metairie, an unincorporated city of about 145,000 adjacent to New Orleans:

Nancy Adams and her daughter Jolie Taubin of Covington had waited all day Monday to be one of the first people to meet Sarah Palin and shake her hand at a book signing in Metairie. They said the wait was worth it.

"It was an experience you won't forget," Adams told her 9-year-old daughter after they met Palin.

Adams and Taubin were two of hundreds of people who waited hours to meet Palin on Monday night at a book-signing at Barnes & Noble on Veterans Memorial Boulevard.

Palin signed copies of "America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag." The book hit bookshelves Nov. 23, and Metairie was an early stop on the national tour. Palin will be in Baton Rouge at a Books-a-Million on Tuesday morning.

When Palin stepped behind the book-signing table, the excited crowd cheered and broke out in scattered chants of "Run, Sarah, run," encouraging Palin to run for president in 2012.

About 300 people were waiting in line Monday morning for the bookstore's doors to open so they could buy the book and get a wristband for the signing, said Jennifer Simon, community relations manager for the Metairie store. Bookstore employees wouldn't release a final count of wristbands given out.

Palin smiled widely, shook hands and spoke with everyone as she autographed books.

"Six children," the mother of five and former vice presidential candidate exclaimed to one woman. "You have me beat."

Attendees said they were surprised at how friendly Palin was. "She's very personable, very charming," said Gwen Mitchell of Destrehan.

Says Gov. Palin has "an incredible skill to connect with people"*In an Newsmax TV interview, former Florida governor Jeb Bush sided with his mother Barbara in the war of words between his clan's matriarch and Sarah Palin. Dubya's younger brother, however, said his mom "from time to time says things that that give us all great joy and sometimes some consternation," and offered praise for the former governor of Alaska and GOP vice presidential candidate:

”She's got an incredible skill to connect with people. She has fantastic political instincts, I think... She seems to get energy from the left's opposition of her. It's interesting how she turns that energy into continued strength amongst people who view the elites with great concern. So she's managed to figure out how to deal with this almost irrational displeasure of (sic) her. She turns it into a huge political strength. That requires just great political instincts, and she certainly has it.”

Die-hard fans in Houston lined up for today's 11AM signing as early as 5PM Sunday*Gov. Palin's America By Heart book tour brought her back to Texas Sunday and Monday. KTRK-TV aired this package on the Houston event this morning:

*On Facebook, Gov. Palin poses some questions for the Obama white House about the latest Wikileaks document drop:

Serious Questions about the Obama Administration's Incompetence in the Wikileaks Fiasco

We all applaud the successful thwarting of the Christmas-Tree Bomber and hope our government continues to do all it can to keep us safe. However, the latest round of publications of leaked classified U.S. documents through the shady organization called Wikileaks raises serious questions about the Obama administration’s incompetent handling of this whole fiasco.

First and foremost, what steps were taken to stop Wikileaks director Julian Assange from distributing this highly sensitive classified material especially after he had already published material not once but twice in the previous months? Assange is not a “journalist,” any more than the “editor” of al Qaeda’s new English-language magazine Inspire is a “journalist.” He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands. His past posting of classified documents revealed the identity of more than 100 Afghan sources to the Taliban. Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders?

What if any diplomatic pressure was brought to bear on NATO, EU, and other allies to disrupt Wikileaks’ technical infrastructure? Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to permanently dismantle Wikileaks? Were individuals working for Wikileaks on these document leaks investigated? Shouldn’t they at least have had their financial assets frozen just as we do to individuals who provide material support for terrorist organizations?

Most importantly, serious questions must also be asked of the U.S. intelligence system. How was it possible that a 22-year-old Private First Class could get unrestricted access to so much highly sensitive information? And how was it possible that he could copy and distribute these files without anyone noticing that security was compromised?

The White House has now issued orders to federal departments and agencies asking them to take immediate steps to ensure that no more leaks like this happen again. It’s of course important that we do all we can to prevent similar massive document leaks in the future. But why did the White House not publish these orders after the first leak back in July? What explains this strange lack of urgency on their part?

We are at war. American soldiers are in Afghanistan fighting to protect our freedoms. They are serious about keeping America safe. It would be great if they could count on their government being equally serious about that vital task.

A review of "America By Heart"*Hugh Hewitt reviewed Gov. Palin's America by Heart for the Washington Examiner's Monday edition and found it to be "a very fine read, one that displays a unified theory of America and a complete understanding of the key currents that will swirl through the politics of the next two years." He also judges it to be "a near perfect setup for a presidential run":

If the book has a target, it is in fact the coastal elites that define and drive so much of American culture. The big foots of Manhattan-Beltway-Los Angeles media aren't going to be familiar with Charles Stanley or Max Lucado, but Palin is comfortable quoting them in support of her points. Some of those elites might recognize the names of Fred Barnes, Arthur Brooks, Jonah Goldberg, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Rich Lowry, but they may blink at Palin's quick references to the Brooks' key book, "The Battle." The odds are good that these elites are not regular readers of National Review or the Weekly Standard and thus not remotely familiar with the arguments that powered the red wave this past November.

Palin's grasp of the current political moment is comprehensive. She knows the conservative movement. She is generous about those who lead it with her, spending time praising Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, for example. And contrary to press reports, she allots very little ink to direct criticism of the president.

"America by Heart" is an upbeat, positive affirmation of traditional American values. I have often thought and said that not since Richard Nixon can any Republican divide a room more quickly than Sarah Palin, and this is because she is so completely the anti-anti-American, totally comfortable with and confident in her assertion of American exceptionalism. Palin is also very much the counterforce to Al Gore, not only as the repudiation of his ideology and his politics, but also as a base-rousing, media-driving original whose appeal cannot be blunted by the endless abuse she receives from the unwatchable washed-ups on "The View" or elsewhere.

Hewitt rains on the hopes of liberals who wish she would just go away, calling Sarah Palin "a powerful American voice, one that will remain that way for years to come, whether she runs for president in 2012 or not."

"May be" beating them?*Howard Kurtz, who is a media critic by trade, has also been a longtime critic of Sarah Palin. But in his latest opinion piece at the left wing Daily Beast, he is forced to concede that Gov. Palin may be beating the media at their own game and setting herself up "perfectly" for a 2012 presidential run:

I’m starting to believe the detractors are wrong and that Palin is executing a shrewd strategy that has catapulted her past potential rivals, co-opting the same media establishment she loves to denigrate.

[...]

In her TLC series on Alaska, we see Sarah the frontierswoman hunting, skeet-shooting, and beating a captured halibut to death. None of these skills are in demand in the Oval Office, but they cast her as a strong, swashbuckling figure. Compared to that image, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty seem like, well, guys in suits.

“Sarah Palin has never done anything conventional,” says John Coale, a Washington lawyer and informal adviser to Palin. “The reality show shows a very nice person—what’s not to like? It’s great TV. With her Facebook page and tweets, to the great upset of the media, she communicates around them and they don’t like it. There’s no filter.”

[...]

The numbers tell the story. According to a Google News search by New York Times blogger Nate Silver, Palin’s name has been mentioned in about 20,300 articles this year, compared with 3,640 for Romney, 3,280 for Newt Gingrich, 2,980 for Pawlenty and 1,870 for Mike Huckabee. She has been Googled six times as often as these four gentlemen combined.

And don’t be fooled by the fact that the ratings for Sarah Palin’s Alaska dropped from 5 million to 3 million after the debut episode. In the YouTube age, far more people see the clips and follow the chatter over the series than watch it as couch potatoes.

[...]

John Ellis, a seasoned political analyst and a cousin of George W. Bush, puts it this way:

“‘She's too stupid’ is what the Establishment GOP really thinks about Sarah Palin. ‘Good-looking,’ but a ‘ditz.’ This is unfertile ground, since Palin can turn the argument on a dime and say: ‘They drive the country into bankruptcy, they underwrite Fannie and Freddie, they bail out Goldman Sachs, they fight wars they don't want to win, they say enforcing the immigration laws is silly and they call me stupid! I'll give you a choice: You can have their smarts or my stupidity, which one do you want?’”

That’s why the images of Palin hunting and fishing and telling Willow she can’t have boys upstairs may matter more than her policy positions—and separate her from a president with a Harvard Law degree. If the smart guys have failed, if the credentialed creative class has messed things up, it opens the door for a plain-spoken populist ready to refudiate the old order.

It's important to remember here that although he has a reputation as a "media critic," Kurtz is of the media, by the media and for the media. It's somewhat like having baseball players umpire baseball games. And though many have argued that taking on the media is a game Sarah Palin, or any other political figure, just cannot win, the results of public opinion polling make a strong case for the opposite view.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey conducted in October of 2009 found that 70 percent of adults nationwide -- an overwhelming majority -- considered the media to be out of touch with average Americans. One month earlier, a Gallup Poll discovered that a majority of Americans had "not very much" confidence or "none at all" in the old media. Studies by The Pew Research Center that same year confirmed that the public’s assessment of the accuracy of news reporting had slipped to its lowest level in more than two decades, and Americans’ opinions of media bias and independence were tied with previous lows. More recently, a Gallup Poll measuring the public's trust in institutions found Newspapers and television news ratings down in the low to mid twenty percent range. At least the media managed to beat Congress, which earned the confidence of only 11 percent of those surveyed.

With numbers like that, Sarah Palin clearly demonstrates that she knows how to choose her battles. It was the media, after all, that made her their enemy, and she is determined to make them regret that choice. As much as the media likes to claim that her national poll numbers are not all that great, they never mention that she polls much better than they do. Criticizing the media is in fact a smart and effective strategy for Sarah Palin, as effective as her criticism of Congress prior to the midterm elections. And we all know how that turned out.

Her words carry a realness uncommon in the political world*Blogger and commentator Jedediah Bilah interviewed Gov. Palin last week and writes about it in an op-ed for Human Events:

What is she like?

Former governor Palin is down-to-earth and astute. There was nothing self-interested or narcissistic in her tone. She was optimistic about possibilities, but realistic about dangers. There was a warmth that shone through when she talked about her family; that same warmth was apparent when she spoke of America’s founding principles. There was an honest frustration in her voice with respect to “policies coming out of Washington, DC that punish the producers and don’t let the job creators do what they do best.” And there was an underlying toughness – a hearty durability – that made her thoughts grounded and stalwart. That toughness leapt forward boldly when it was time to defend how America should “be a light for others who seek to exercise their God-given rights and liberties.”

[...]

Palin spoke extensively about her record, beginning with her days of local office “taking on the good old boy network in my own town running for city council because I saw that many on our local city council and in our Mayor’s office decided that because they had a title, a political position, they were going to start taking private property rights away and start telling businesses and homeowners what they could or couldn’t do on their own private property.”

She discussed her roles as Mayor, Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and especially Governor. “To be a successful governor,” she said, “you have to put obsessive partisanship aside, and you have to be a really good administrator, and you have to have a good team around you, and you have to make prudent decisions based on what is best for the people whom you are serving.

[...]

There was a confidence in her voice when she spoke of her record, a reverence for the teamwork that went into her accomplishments, and a fearlessness with respect to taking on what is powerful and entrenched in the name of doing what’s right.

[...]

In response to the fact that some have labeled her “too polarizing,” Palin replied, “I think the polarizing thing is the most perplexing because the positions that I hold, I believe, are quite reflective of what most Americans believe in, and that is the protection of our freedoms and our free market and doing all that we can to remain a superpower.” She questioned why President Obama’s positions aren’t considered polarizing to those same critics...

[...]

What attributes does Palin think a GOP candidate who steps up to the plate in 2012 should have? “Someone who’s willing to take some risks in terms of bringing in people who aren’t the known bureaucrats, but people with private sector experience who know how to run a business, make payroll, balance a budget, and live within your means.”

[...]

Throughout the interview, I didn’t see any signs of naïve, ditzy, or amateur. I saw knowledgeable, level-headed, and accomplished.

That "divisiveness" didn't prevent Reagan from being a two- term president*On "State of the Union," CNN's entry in the gaggle of Sunday morning television talk shows, Candy Crowley asked Sen. John McCain for hiscomments on his 2008 running mate's recent projects, including the "Sarah Palin's Alaska" series on TLC and current tour of the heartland to promote her second book America By Heart:

"She's keeping her options open, and I think she should," the Republican senator from Arizona said on "She's an incredible force in the American political arena."

When Crowley interrupted to ask if Palin was "divisive," the senator chuckled."A guy named Ronald Reagan used to be viewed as divisive," said McCain...

At the left wing Washington Post, Aaron Blake and Felicia Sonmez opine that the comparison is a valid one, as they point out that during his presidency, Reagan's average approval rating was 53 percent:

As for the operative word here -- "divisiveness" -- Reagan had a claim to it. Many more Republicans approved of him than Democrats, and even at his peak, just 68 percent of Americans approved of him, a number lower than everyone but Richard Nixon over the last 65 years.

The reason Reagan couldn't get higher than that was because there was a segment of the population, about one-third, that was dead-set against him. Reagan is often listed in polls of people's favorite presidents, but because of that one-third, he's also among the leaders for people's least favorite presidents. His detractors often feel just as strongly as his supporters about Reagan's legacy.

Recent polling shows Palin is on par with all of that.

What Blake and Sonmez fail to mention, however, is that in his day, the liberal media portrayed Reagan in the worst possible light, making the press a party to driving his poll numbers down. The two also chose not to mention that despite this perceived "divisiveness," Ronald Reagan easily won the 1980 election, beating sitting President Jimmy Carter by 440 electoral college votes and carrying 44 states to Carter's 6 plus the District of Columbia. The Gipper's reelection in 1984 was even more lopsided, as his opponent, liberal Walter Mondale, managed to carry only his home state of Minnesota. Reagan won the rest, as his 525 electoral votes set a record for the highest total ever received by a presidential candidate, and he crushed Mondale in the popular vote by more than 18 percentage points.

Not too shabby for a "divisive" conservative Republican who had the press working against him.

Obama insists he doesn't even think about her*Things have been going Gov. Palin's way lately, and Andrew Malcolm sees even more good news for the possible presidential candidate:

Fans are lining up in the cold 24 hours in advance to buy her new book during the 16-city promotion tour for "America by Heart." "This lady will be the next president of the United States of America," said an enthused Brian Roper in Tulsa.

She's got a hit cable TV show. Polls of Republicans show the former Alaska governor is currently a most popular candidate for the party's 2012 presidential nomination.

And now, believe it or not, even President Obama has an encouraging word for her. The Democrat tells ABC's Barbara Walters that he's not paying attention to his possible White House competitor.

[...]

That would be repeating the same mistake some of Obama's Democrat competitors made back in 2006-07.

They thought that an inexperienced elected state official who'd quit that job to run for higher office, who could give a real good speech but had zero foreign policy experience and who had only written a couple of best-selling books, could not possibly present a serious political challenge to established Washington veterans.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

"So Governor Chris Christie... got caught up with ridiculing a conservative like Sarah Palin on national television. OK, if he likes to play that game. But there is something called class, which he needs to have a lesson about... My point is, show some respect for her. She never uttered a bad word about the governor. He should reciprocate the respect and not let the liberal media frame how he should characterize Palin. One day, Christie will be rudely awakened to a liberal media that will hate his guts. Everything is peachy so far. But just remember what happened to media darling Senator John McCain."

This episode shows five Palin generations with focus on Todd's side of the family*At Big Hollywood Saturday, Lorie Byrd previewed tonight's episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," the newest installment of the 8-part series:

This week Sarah Palin’s Alaska is all about family and fish. The Palins visit Todd’s family in Dillingham and at a fish camp in Ekuk. And they do a lot of fishing. Sarah and Todd’s son Track is back from Iraq and eager to make money following in his father’s fishing footsteps. But first he has to prove to his father that he can be the next of the great Palin fishermen.

In addition to watching Track catch fish (or not catch fish), Todd’s Eskimo grandmother, Lena, teaches Willow and the other girls in the family how to process the fish properly. Willow describes the scene as being covered in blood (and fish guts) and says she doesn’t think any of her friends do this. She is a good sport though and pretty good at it.

Later at the fish camp in Ekuk, after learning to process salmon for smoking, Piper says “I think I’m the best fish fileter in the whole third grade.”

The episode shows the Palin side of the family (5 generations) and what a big part of their lives fishing is.

Byrd says that the most powerful moments in the episode are those which focus on Trig and his older cousin Matthew. Both boys have Down syndrome.The reviewer adds that this installment of the 8-part series is the most “real” of the episodes so far, and it shows "the background of hard work and family that shapes Todd and Sarah Palin’s world view."

"Salmon Run," the third episode of "Sarah Palin's Alaska," airs tonight, at 9PM Eastern/8PM Central on TLC, with an encore showing two hours later.

"Now Sarah's done it! Killing a fish on TV! Let's fade out of that horror scene for a second and watch the liberals moan about Sarah Palin killing a halibut. In public. In front of God and everybody. This is as bad as not aborting her baby... Being liberal means never having to see blood. It means voting for free abortions for teeny boppers, but never having to watch a fish dying on TV. It means cuddling your cat and never seeing her sneak out every night to kill little baby birds. Liberals live off the turkeys of the land, protected by cops and soldiers, fed by farmers and fishermen, and still pretending to live for peace and love forever, and no more visible blood... If you don't want turkeys to die, don't eat your Thanksgiving dinner. It's one or the other. Liberals demand both."

"That's it...just when I think PDS can't possibly reach any lower depths of outright insanity we get this headline: 'Sarah Palin Blasted for Halibut Snuff Film'... The only better way to kill these creatures would be to... force them to listen to one of Obama’s long, drawn-out answers to simple questions, or…better yet, one of his speeches."

"Anyone who doubts the seriousness -- or savvy -- or Palin's game plan needs to look closely at her book-tour travel schedule, particularly as it relates to what for her would be the make-or-break state of Iowa. She [visited] Des Moines Saturday -- an obvious and central stop. But also on Saturday she [stopped] at Norfolk, Nebraska, a seemingly out-of-the-way place until you realize that coverage of the event there (and funneled through Omaha TV and Sioux City, Iowa TV) will blanket Western Iowa -- the most staunchly conservative and Republican part of the state. She will reach those voters again on Dec. 2, when she travels to Spirit Lake, Iowa. It's not just a nifty name -- it's a central tourism spot in the midst of the farm-and-lake country of west-central Iowa. Indeed, if there are parts of America (and Iowa) where people 'cling to their guns and their religion,' as candidate Barack Obama once famously said, Sarah... is heading right to 'em."

"Right now we live in an America governed by a President who entered office with a less than distinguished record as a state senator and only a two year record as a United States senator where he accomplished little more than to run for president. And yet it’s Sarah Palin, a two-term mayor, former governor and chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission who’s had the narrative built up and fortified around her that she doesn’t have the experience to be the president of the United States. And who built that narrative? The media."

"Sandra Bernhard called Bristol Palin a hooker on Wednesday's 'The Joy Behar Show.' This was just a part of a televised hatefest reminiscent of the Lindsay Lohan film 'Mean Girls' ... And Maureen Dowd thinks conservative women are mean."

"It's fair game to discuss whether Bristol Palin arrived at the finals of ABC's Dancing with the Stars on talent alone (instead of being judged with telephone voting). But ABC and The Washington Post were Palin-obsessed enough to actually pay for a poll question on the matter... It's not unfair to insist Palin's daughter wouldn't be in the finals without support from her mother's fans. It would be silly to insist Palin's daughter would be on this show at all without her mother. But the Post's anti-Palin feelings are showing. Can you imagine ABC and the Post paying for a poll question asking whether Chelsea Clinton's talents landed her a six-figure job?"

"Syndicated columnist and CNN contributor Roland S. Martin has called for violence against Sarah Palin. Martin took Palin to task for her criticisms of First Lady Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative. Martin writes, '...Maybe someone should kick Sarah Palin so she can understand how devastating obesity is to the future of the United States.' Well, needless to say, if a conservative writer (like myself) had suggested that President Obama or the First Lady be kicked we would hear a chorus of cackles telling us how violent conservatives are. But I guess it's O.K. for Martin to call for violence against Sarah Palin simply because she expresses an opinion contrary to his own. Martin should do the right thing and publicly apologize to Palin. But will it happen? Fat chance."

"The read on POTUS Obama is that he has not solved the heartland. That he says that he comes from Illinois, but that his attitude is Hyde Park academy tricked up with Washington patois of 'investment' and 'outreach.' Palin answers the heartland in perfect key."

"To imagine that we would even bother to listen to the Stone Age Press as to who our nominee is should really tell us who to pick. They are attempting to Alinsky the Palin name so that the Conservative Country Clubbers will be too embarrassed to embrace her as a serious candidate... What terrifies the establishment on both sides is that she will become the Tea Party candidate. After she stood up to them and put her neck on the line for all the Tea Party nominees as well as bringing her crowds to the Tea Parties, the last thing the Inner Circle could stand would be a Tea Party President. She would bring excitement to the race that has not been seen... This would be a true grassroots movement [which] would not be bought off by any outside lobbies. She would even be basically separate from the GOP as they have not done any favors for her or the candidates she supported. This terrifies them as they would lose complete control of everything."

"If the Democrats think things are bad now, wait until Sarah Palin grabs them by their bleeding hearts... As each day counts down toward the 2012 election, it seems more and more possible to me that Sarah Palin could be president of the United States."

"Something else to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week: Sarah Palin, for ripping the MSM/punditocracy a new one over their continued double standards when it comes to the issue of political gaffes. Palin made one earlier this week on the North/South Korea stand-off, and the mainstream media (and snide left wing pundits and Beltway insider Republicans) went ballistic (no pun intended) with criticism. Palin responded via Facebook noting some of the numerous gaffes made by President Obama that typically get little to no attention from The Usual Suspects who are still infatuated and slobbering over our celebrity President after all this time."

Some stood in the windy cold as early as 11 p.m. Saturday*It was a familiar story during her Going Rogue book tour, and we are seeing it being repeated at every stop so far on her America By Heart signing tour. Sarah Palin fans lined up early in Andover Kansas for a chance to meet the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor:

Some stood in the windy cold as early as 11 p.m. Saturday night for the Sunday visit.

[...]

The 46-year-old is promoting "American by Heart," subtitled"Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag." The book came out Tuesday and is her first since the million-selling memoir "Going Rogue." Palin will be joined by her husband, Todd, and other family members.

The Andover signing began today at 11AM at the Dillions Marketplace and concludes at 2PM, after which the governor will be on her way to Texas for a 6PM signing event at the Lincoln Park Barnes & Noble in Dallas.

Here's a report on the preparations that were made in Andover for Gov. Palin's visit.

"Boehlert fails to note the story exploded on major news sites on the Web"*Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King have caught Media Matters Red-handed telling yet even more lies about Gov Palin:

Responding to Palin’s “57 states” comment, Media Matters’ Eric Boehlert wrote “Palin Concocts More Media Sins.” Boehlert uses a search of Nexis to make Media Matters’ disingenuous case that Palin has overblown media coverage of her “We have to stand by our North Korean allies” flub made during the interview with Beck on his radio show last Wednesday.

Boehlert smears Palin, describing her as being nuts in some manner or form, “self-obsessed” and imagining things.

“Fox News’ Sarah Palin is now so consumed with every real or imagined media wrong against her that she’s to the point where she’s attacking the press for stuff they don’t even do.”

Even though Palin’s slip was reported in headlined stories by American and international wire services, as well as major news sites across America and around the globe, Boehlert claims “major American newspaper(s) did not turn the Palin/North Korea gaffe into a “major political headline,” did not treat it as news, and did not even mention it as news when it occurred .” Boehlert changes Palin’s assertion of major political headlines to major newspaper headlines, a sleight of hand that allows Boehlert to use Nexis to list major American news outlets that supposedly did not report on Palin’s slip:

As Kristinn and Andrea point out, most people are now getting their news from online sources, so the Nexis search, which identifies only reports in the media’s dead tree editions, is an obvious trick which is disingenuous, at best. The pair did a Google search which provided numberous wire service, television network news, newspaper and political sites which headlined the same coverage that Madia Matters says does not exist. Then Kristinn and Andrea back it all up with links to those websites.

In conclusion, the authors state the obvious, that "reporters relying on Media Matters for accuracy are setting themselves up to be played for fools." Sadly all too many reporters are not just willing -- but eager -- to play the fool, proving Lenin's point about "useful idiots."

"There is... a very real possibility of Palin winning the 2012 presidential nomination"*Stacy McCain reminds us that it is not Charles Krauthammer’s fault that the media are obsessed not only with with presidential politics, but with what they see as their mission from Gawd, The Obamamessiah, to destroy Sarah Palin:

However, it is Krauthammer’s fault that he can’t speak of Palin except to dismiss her with a sneer. (Am I the only one who noticed his significant pause between “glorious” and “woman”?)

Allahpundit isn’t as openly sneering as Krauthammer: “While no one would claim that conservatism begins and ends with Palin, some of her more devoted supporters do seem to regard her as an avatar of the movement.”

Here’s my problem with such dismissive attitudes toward Palin from conservatives: It sets up the 2012 primary contest as a battle between Smart Republicans (who are presumed to oppose Palin) and Dumb Republicans (who presumably support Palin). This message — which is being shouted from the rooftops by Krauthammer, Rove and many others — will tend to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Which is to say, most of the Smart Republicans who take their political cues from the conservative intelligentsia will in fact oppose Palin. But the influence of Rove, Krauthammer et al. is not so great as they wish and, in a multi-candidate field, the irreducible hard core of Palin supporters among GOP primary voters is still large enough to win pluralities in every state where the primary electorate is limited to registered Republicans. (Seriously: Comparing the average Romney supporter to the average Palin supporter, which is more likely to trudge through the snow to attend an Iowa caucus meeting?)

There is therefore a very real possibility of Palin winning the 2012 presidential nomination, at which point all the sneering condescension of the Krauthammer/Rove class will justify the MSM in declaring, “The Dumb Republicans have won!”

Stacy makes a good point, and we agree. However, we don't share his presumption that Rove, Krauthammer, Frum and their ilk would prefer to see a first Sarah Palin term in the White House to a second Obama term. He argues that the conservative intelligentsia should "start acting as if a Palin presidency were both possible and preferable to Obama’s re-election," but we're not optimistic that will come to pass. After all, how many of those supposed conservatives voted for Obama? Most probably won't admit which lever they pulled when behind the curtains, but many of the Conservative Lite® elites, including Amanda Carpenter, Joe Scarborough, Bill Bennett, Peggy Noonan were in high song of the freshman Senator's praises in the run up to the 2008 election.

Our biggest problem with Karauthammer is that he seems more offended that the press is obsessed with Gov. Palin, when he should be offended that it is obsessed with her destruction. But Krauthammer and the other right of center elites love the media. They are of the media part and parcel. Media elitism is the hand that has fed them lo these many years, and they dare not bite it. Unlike Sarah Palin, they have shown not the slightest interest in even reforming it.

"Fear is not a factor for the Palins"*Dr. Gina Loudon argues that it is inevitable: the United States has a woman president in its near future. If conservatives choose NOT to nominate Sarah Palin, she points out, the liberals are certain to nominate a woman soon, and then they will "continue the whining about sexism that has worked for them for so long":

Liberals and establishment politicians of all parties seem to have a special venom for the former Governor of Alaska. If she is really so “unelectable” then why all the fuss? “Thou doth protest…”. If she is really so laughable, then why do the jokes about her keep falling flat? Could it be that they obsess about her for the psychological reason that they can’t stand the threat she poses to them? Could it be because they see her as the greatest threat in recent history to their personal goals, and the establishment media and messaging they have used to control politics in this country for a generation? Could it be that the nomination of Sarah Palin for President is a revolution?

Her nomination presents a real conundrum for liberals and establishment parties of all stripes. If the Republicans nominate Sarah Palin, how will the liberals continue to accuse the right of being sexist? Where will the feminists go to find their beloved glass ceiling victim status? If she has outspoken gay supporters who don’t disagree with her stance that this is a Judeo Christian republic with a founding document that matters more than someone’s sexual preference, then how will the militant gays continue to relegate Christians to radical, homophobic, hating extremists? If a family woman, a mom, can (based on her Christian principle) in fact love someone that the liberals say she hates, then what do liberals do with that? If the constitutional conservatives progress this nation to nominate the first female nominee for president, then how do liberals continue to abuse labels like “progressive” and “tolerant”?

Conservatives have their own issues. First, from a GOP perspective, consultants use their experience with the apparatus to be hired by candidates to run their campaigns. How will they do that if someone climbed to the top on a different tree? Some conservatives may struggle with her rebuke of legalistic philosophy in lieu of one that favors real liberty, and Christ-like love, even for those who live or believe differently than you. Perhaps most difficult for some conservatives to admit–When a woman like Sarah Palin is President, how to we reconcile our own sideline behavior without tremendous guilt? I wish I had a good answer to that last one.

The militant liberals don’t like her, but interestingly she has attracted a broad group of people who do like her. Their loyalty has resulted in an organization that is so talented and proficient, it is difficult to comprehend, even to a seasoned campaign veteran. Her supporters are constitution loving, focused and very, very serious about supporting her (or whomever she taps with her magic winning wand)! Not everyone at the Conservatives for Palin were certain she would run, or that she should, but almost all that I talked to agreed that if she did run, the Country would be shocked at her savvy and self deprecating ability to do so. They all agreed that she is far stronger, far more capable than any of her opponents even know. She is certainly well vetted, beyond that of any other candidate. Most people would agree that no other candidate has endured the ridicule and jabs that Sarah has overcome.

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